RASL Meeting February 29, 2016
Attendees: Allison Ameduri, Allison Ryan, Emily Mervis, Laura Rios, Stacey Shapiro, Alice Chunn
Via GoToMeeting: Emily Davis & Joyce Valenza
Upcoming Events:
1. SCI Career Expo: Monday, March 21, 5-8 College Avenue Student Center.
- We will have a table, executive members will table and visit employers.
2. March Meeting: Monday, March 28, 5:50-6:20 Room 323.
3. April Meeting: Monday, April 25, 5:50-6:20 Room 323.
4. NJASL Spring Meeting
- Date has not been set, will potentially get a group of volunteers together
5. “Library LitCamp” UnConference: May 7 at South Brunswick Middle School.
- Joyce is organizing this event and is interested in having us volunteer, network.
6. NJLA, Library Trivia: May 16-18 is NJLA.
- Joyce is putting together Library Trivia and would love to have us volunteer or attend if we are attending NJLA.
Roundtable Discussion: Experiences in School Libraries
What type of school libraries are we in for field experience or working in? Elementary, high school, private middle/high school
What roles does the school librarian play?
What are the struggles of the school librarian?
We all noted varying levels of collaboration with teachers/direct involvement with instruction in our field experiences. Joyce addressed that a fixed schedule (more common with elementary schools) can be especially challenging for collaboration with teachers, as if a teacher drops her class off in the library to take her planning period, there is less of a motivation to stay in the library and work together on a project, resulting in the librarian not being connected to class instruction.
Joyce’s recommendations for a librarian being involved in instruction was to make herself relevant: be in touch, attend department and grade-level meetings, offer to host the meetings in the library, maybe even saying “let me treat you to lunch in the library so I can show you the resources I think would help you in your classes.” She also says to partner with the right person and do a lesson makeover. Bottom line, teachers like when the librarian makes something easier for them.
We identified that the culture among the librarians and the rest of the faculty impacts the amount of collaboration, but Joyce identified that this is not an excuse, saying we cannot accept that the culture is fixed; we must try to change the culture, and if it doesn’t work, we leave and find a new environment, but we can’t be useless. She despaired that we were not witnessing exemplary instruction, and implored us not to “just check out books and read stories.” We can’t just be the place for books, and not just the “library skills.” We have to be involved in instruction and the critical thinking initiative of the school. We can’t forget about the last two stages of the Guided Inquiry process: create and share. How are we inviting students to create and share what they have learned? How are we asking them to think critically?
Other challenges we discussed were librarians having responsibilities to teach classes, taking them out of the library (potentially closing it to others) and uninvited guests asking (or “asking”) to use the library without regard to whether it is busy. Joyce urged us to not act like victims, and to be team players in emergencies. She also said that vendors will come to the school to give tutorials in installing a self-check situation, whether it be an iPad or otherwise, so that these duties can be student-driven tasks; students will feel ownership and the librarian does not have to be involved directly in each checkout.
Have we seen Taylor Mali’s I’ll Fight You for the Library? Take a few minutes to watch.
Joyce wants to make a “map” of exemplar school library programs and ensure that Rutgers students on the school library track get to see what great instruction looks like, either in a group setting, or create a list of places where students could “drop-in” if they are in the area to speak with the librarians.
She cited a particular successful collaborative project with ELL teachers in which the students did a Library Olympics in sync with the real Olympics where each student represented his or her home country and performed contests like lifting stacks of books, and it got them extremely comfortable with the library as a fun place as well as a place for resources. Following this collaborative project, these students adopted the library as their home.